By Daniela Hernandez

Midnight Berries

By Maya Joseph

Sometimes, in a night without stars, I open the door to my childhood home—in my memory, of course. I remember snow falling in sugar clumps, burning our skin and frozen wool gloves. Skeleton trees and hot cocoa as my brother and I drew a tic-tac-toe with the frost of the window panes. My mother read us a story with a blanket in her knees. I remember spring, and how the icicles began to melt. The pat-pat-pattering of it hitting the ever-present metal bucket in the attic. In the garden suspended in time, my mother sits in a redwood chair as light fills the blue-gray of the sky. In the folds of her polka-dot dress, the roses tangle but don’t prick her. My father bends to whisper in her ear, and she laughs. I can still picture the white of his brim hat as he walked on the gravel. His shirt tucked and blinding under the sun. He kisses my mother, and my brother and I pucker our faces in disgust. They both laugh, brightly and fully. But the night was coming, and they call us home. We would see the old carpet rolled and my brother and I smiled: it was time to dance. Music played and all of us—my mother, father, brother, and me—danced in discordance to the beat. The days were bright red, and our bodies were possessed by light. I leave the house in the morning.